Shin Splints

Shin Splints a.k.a. Medial Tebial Stress Syndrome

 

(image from wikipedia)

 

I had shin splints once in Jr. High.  I experienced them once again in High School, I think junior year.  Now, I have them again.  Which is odd because in the last eight years, I have trained and run in four different marathons, and three half marathons and numerous 5k's.  No problems whatsoever up until now.  On the other hand I think I know the cause.  When I trained for The Phoenix Marathon the last Saturday of February of 2014 I did most of my running in one pair of shoes.  Once in a while I would use a n older different pair and for the Marathon I used a differnt third pair.  Since then I have used exclusively that one pair of shoes.  So the shoes have worn down and without alternating shoes, I now have shin splints.  I will get into the details of which shoes I used in another post specifically about my running shoes.  Needless to say, shin splints have given such pain that I went couch potatoe mode the last two weeks of December.  Then I pulled out what my son calls my shiny shoes.  They are Asics Gel Nimbus 14, just wild neon yellow and orange.  I used those and my shins felt fine the first two weeks of January but now the pain is returning.  Thus my restriction on the length and intensity of workouts.  I have ordered a new pair of shoes that is "EE" or wide (as opposed to EE EE) which is double wide).  Hopefully that new pair of shoes and alternating between those and the shiny shoes will make the pain go away!  Standby for the rest of the story on my shoe post.  Happy pain free running, or at least only dealing with the normal pain associated with running.